by Erica Ridley
Not that they’d need to do so for long. Cole had successfully pushed weights and measures reform once before. He had no doubt he could do so again. Perhaps not the exact way Diana envisioned, but their aims were the same. Improving the everyday lives of fellow citizens.
“And now Your Grace,” said the attendant, sweeping toward Cole with reams of fabric in his hands.
Cole stared at him. “How can you possibly be done selecting every button and material necessary for a complete season’s worth of gowns?”
The attendant’s eyes widened with awe. “Your friend is remarkably efficient.”
Chapter 13
Friend. That was how the shopkeeper had referred to Cole’s relationship with Diana.
Cole supposed it was true enough. But it was far from all he wanted.
When he dropped Diana back at her town house, he invited her to dine at his ducal residence later that evening. Cole’s sister—and an army of servants—would be there to play chaperone, but he encouraged her to bring her cousin and as many maids as she pleased all the same.
He wanted to do this right.
But there was the small matter of a certain wager to dispense with first. He left a note for Thaddeus to call upon him at his earliest convenience, then directed his driver straight to the Wicked Duke.
“Colehaven!” came the familiar chorus as he stepped in from the cold. Clinking glasses and smiling faces surrounded him.
He made his way to his usual spot alongside Eastleigh.
“I resign from the wager,” Cole announced.
“You can’t resign from a wager,” Eastleigh admonished him.
“He can lose, though!” someone else called out.
Laughter mixed with the sound of clinking glasses.
“He can’t have lost,” Eastleigh said.
“Because of his winning streak?” someone asked.
“Ten years isn’t forever,” someone else agreed.
“You have until the end of the season,” Eastleigh said in surprise. “I have never witnessed you giving up, much less four months early.”
“This isn’t surrender,” Cole assured him. “This is the eve of battle.”
As skilled a chess player as Diana might be, he doubted she anticipated his next move. But if Cole was in, he was in. He would convince her their union was the best possible future.
“Fetch me the betting book,” Eastleigh called out, then lowered his voice toward Cole. “Does Thad know?”
Cole shook his head. “I’ve requested an audience this afternoon.”
Something in his voice or face must have caused suspicion, because Eastleigh’s green eyes narrowed.
“Does the lady know?” he asked dryly.
“I’m not certain she suspects,” Cole admitted. “But I owe her both honesty and respect. I cannot ask for her hand whilst my friends all have money riding on the outcome.”
“Many gentlemen would,” Eastleigh said as the betting book passed from hand to hand in his direction.
Cole shook his head. “Then they’re not gentlemen.”
If Diana rejected his suit, Cole would get no pleasure from marrying her off to someone else. Winning the bet was worthless if it meant losing Diana. If tonight didn’t go as he hoped… then Cole was about to lose both.
He gripped the edges of his chair with suddenly clammy hands. What was he going to do if Diana didn’t return his affection?
Eastleigh opened the betting book and accepted pen and ink from a barmaid. With a flourish, the duke wrote the date and formally concedes loss below the entry, then handed Cole the pen.
“Last chance,” Eastleigh said softly. “If you sign, it’s done.”
Cole placed the nib to the paper.
Chapter 14
“That was the best Banbury cake I’ve ever had,” Diana said as she placed her folded napkin beside her empty plate.
For some reason, her cousin Thaddeus had declined to join her in accepting Colehaven’s supper invitation. Diana wasn’t certain she had ever heard Thaddeus decline a social occasion before, but of course the timing had been short notice. Thad was no doubt promised to too many other events to count.
“I’m glad you liked it.” Felicity Sutton sent a mischievous glance toward her brother. “Banbury cakes are one of Cole’s favorites. Had you turned up your nose, he likely would have tossed you out on the street.”
“A gentleman does not ‘toss’ ladies,” Colehaven informed his sister firmly. “He gently deposits them out in the cold to fend for themselves.”
“I’m glad I passed the test,” Diana said with a grin.
Perhaps it was for the best that Thaddeus had been too busy to join them. Diana was fairly certain she’d just consumed his portion.
“With Cole, nothing is as simple as a test.” Lady Felicity gave a conspiratorial roll of her eyes. “He thinks life is a game of chess.”
Excitement filled her as Diana turned toward Colehaven.
“You do play,” she said, shaking a finger in mock accusation.
He grinned back at her. “Was there ever any doubt?”
“Not you, too,” Lady Felicity groaned. “Go start your game. I’ll pop in just as soon as I finish… er… rethreading every button in the house. Or counting each ash in the fire. Or anything else that keeps me from repeatedly losing in less than ten moves.”
Diana raised an amused brow toward Colehaven. “Queen to H4?”
“Queen to H4,” he confirmed sadly.
“Noo.” Lady Felicity pushed to her feet. “I refuse to sit still while such nonsensical syllables are bandied about in my presence. Find me when you’re ready to discuss phaetons and brandy like normal people.”
“Normal debutantes don’t know the difference between a puckered hammercloth and a full-plaited hammercloth,” Colehaven remarked to his sister’s retreating back.
“I’m a spinster, not a debutante,” Felicity’s voice called from the corridor. “And why would you get into a carriage if you didn’t understand how it worked?”
Diana’s smile faltered when something in Colehaven’s face made her think the “spinster” remark had hit too close to home.
“Are you worried about your sister?” she asked.
His beseeching expression pierced her. “Four-and-twenty isn’t spinsterhood, is it?”
“It’s past ‘debutante,’” Diana hedged. “It’s also not the end of the world. Look at me, for example.”
Colehaven’s gaze deepened in intensity. He had rarely ceased looking at Diana from the moment she alighted from her carriage. She swallowed.
“Where’s this infamous chess set?” she asked, hoping to deflect attention from the flush of her skin.
He held out a hand to help her to her feet. “This way.”
The private drawing room he led her to appeared to be designed with chess in mind. There were books along the walls, a buffet with wine and glasses, and even a small spinet in one corner, but the star of the room were exquisitely carved ebony and boxwood pieces on a mahogany board centered right below the crystal chandelier.
Diana’s heart skipped. She hurried forward for a better look.
“I’m almost afraid to touch something so beautiful,” she said in awe.
Colehaven’s gaze heated. “A familiar sensation.”
She blushed and ran a finger against the edge of the fluted table. “Black or white?”
He held out his palm. “Ladies first.”
She sat before her sixteen boxwood pieces, hesitant to move one and displace the board’s artistic perfection.
“What are you lords up to in Parliament this year?” she asked.
Colehaven’s wicked grin curled her toes. “Hoping to distract me with politics? I could discuss the Sikes’ Hydrometer Act in my sleep.”
“Discuss away,” she said as she opened with king’s pawn. “I find nothing more enjoyable than strong spirits.”
“Except weights and measures?” he asked dryly.
“I shiver at y
our every word,” she told him. “It’s like you’re speaking poetry.”
He met her pawn with his. “Most of us are on several committees at once. I’m hoping to make more progress with the National Debt.”
She grinned as she moved a boxwood pawn. “Stop allowing spendthrifts to make the budget?”
“If only it were that simple.” His fingers touched his pawn. “It’s not that the government should spend less money. It’s that we need to spend it more efficiently.”
“I have suggestions,” she said at once. “Whole journals full of them.”
He captured her pawn with his. “I imagine you love to debate as much as you love chess.”
“I’ve had less practice with debate,” she admitted as she slid her bishop. “Thad suffers through games with me, but he isn’t a lord. My knowledge of current issues comes from the papers. Half the time, we don’t hear about laws until they’re already enacted.”
“We could change that,” Colehaven offered as his queen flew. “To my surprise, I quite enjoy arguing with you.”
“I wish I could attend the galleries,” she said wistfully. Her king side-stepped. “Women used to be admitted. Why did men take the privilege away?”
“It’s shortsighted,” he agreed with a sigh. “I wish I made the rules.”
She burst out laughing. “You literally create the laws that govern the entire country. If that’s not ‘making the rules…’”
He flashed an impish grin and moved a pawn. “Fair enough. I’ll see what I can do.”
Diana was not looking at the board, but at Colehaven. Opening the galleries back up to women was an impossible request. She knew it. He knew it. And yet she had no doubt that, for her, he would try.
It made her want to kiss him again.
Not that she had ever stopped wanting. She’d thought of little else since their breathless moment alone in the garden. Even this morning, when he’d looked so forlorn at the idea of being outfitted with new waistcoats, it had been all she could do not to place her hands to his jaw and raise her lips to his.
When she captured his pawn with her bishop, her fingers trembled. Unlike this morning on Bond Street, tonight they were all alone. She’d failed to bring her cousin or a maid. His staff was conveniently elsewhere. Even Lady Felicity had disappeared on the thinnest of pretexts, leaving them to carry on as they pleased.
If Diana were to indulge in a moment of reckless passion with a handsome duke, she could scarcely ask for more favorable circumstances.
She glanced up through lowered lashes. Was he thinking the same thing she was?
An unfamiliar tremor threaded her voice when she ventured, “Your Grace?”
“Good God.” He reared back as though she had slapped him. “Never say that again. I’m Colehaven to most, and Cole to my friends.”
Emboldened, she licked her lips and tilted her bosom closer. “Are we just… friends?”
Contrary to her dreams, he did not silence this saucy question by slanting his mouth over hers and making love to her right there on the chess table.
“Would you rather… be a duchess?” he asked instead.
It was Diana’s turn to rear back in horror.
“What?” She spluttered. “No!”
“I’m doing this all wrong,” he said, and turned as though to slide from his chair and sink to one knee.
Diana leaped to her feet and all but forcibly held him in place.
“Don’t do it,” she implored him. “Don’t ruin it.”
“I’m trying to make it better,” he said, his earnest voice and hesitant smile breaking her heart. “We had a moment. I’d like to make it permanent.”
She curved her hands about his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes.
“I’m not going to marry you or any man,” she said. “I told you. I thought you were listening.”
“I hadn’t proposed to you myself when you said that,” he reminded her, as if no woman alive had ever turned down a duke.
Perhaps Diana really was the first.
“Back then, we were talking speculatively,” he continued, his gaze urgent and heartfelt. “You marrying a stranger at some future date. Of course you would be concerned about compatibility. Anyone would. I was, too.”
Diana closed her eyes, as if doing so would block out his voice.
It didn’t work.
“I think we’ve proven our compatibility. Mentally and physically.” His low voice washed over her like a warm breeze.
She shivered anyway.
One of his hands caressed hers.
“Plus,” he murmured as if an afterthought, “it’s a truly splendid duchy. And our cat just had kittens.”
When she opened her eyes to face him anew, her voice came out much harsher than she intended. “I do not care about your duchy.”
This was only partly true. Now that she knew they existed, she could not help but be intrigued by the kittens.
“I won’t marry,” she said softly. “Gaining a hundred dukedoms would not be worth the loss of my freedom. You’re a good man, but you would own me. If you should decide I could no longer keep journals or conduct investigations—”
“Of course you will no longer gad about in working-woman disguises,” he said firmly.
She let go of his shoulders and tried not to scream.
This. This was why she could never wed. She loved him, but if he did this to her, she would quickly come to hate him. Whatever compatibility they’d once shared would vanish like a—
Diana groaned and sat down hard in her seat. She loved him, and she still couldn’t have him. Without her noticing, he’d managed to corner her on the real board. The one where dukes were kings and spinsters were pawns.
Check, but not checkmate. She had a few moves left.
“I’m saying no,” she said quietly, “not to choose a life of spinsterhood over a life with you. That is what I’d always planned to do, what I’ve always believed would bring me joy. But joy is the last thing I feel when I decline the offer to be your duchess.”
He did not hide the hurt in his gaze. “Then why decline?”
“It’s the wrong offer,” she said simply. “I would marry you, but you don’t want to marry me.”
He frowned in confusion. “I just said—”
“You want to change me,” she interrupted. “You want to fix me, mold me, marry a different version of me than the woman I am. I don’t want to stop being me. I don’t even think I could. So, no, I shan’t marry you. I’d bring scandal and embarrassment to your name, and ruin everything you’ve tried to build. Both of us would be worse together than apart.”
His shoulders tightened. “I disagree. Life is worse when we’re apart.”
“There is a way,” she agreed slowly, as a solution glimmered in the back of her mind.
She desired him, wanted to be with him, but refused to be owned by him. Which meant they could never have forever. He would marry someday. She would not. But between now and then… there was no reason to deny themselves what they both desired: each other.
This time, when she rose to her feet, it was not to shake him by the shoulders but rather to settle herself on his lap.
“What are you…” he mumbled, even as his arms circled round to embrace her.
She lowered her mouth to the corner of his and gave it a feathery kiss. “We needn’t bother with marriage to reap the best benefits.”
“But…” he said between kisses. “If you don’t want to be my wife…”
“I can still be your mistress,” she finished, and touched the tip of her tongue to his.
“What?” he stammered against her lips, pulling back to stare at her without understanding. “Instead of a lifetime of marriage, you prefer a life as a mistress?”
She gave a lopsided smile. “I can be a temporary mistress if it makes you feel better.”
“It does not,” he said firmly.
“It could.” She pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. “One year.�
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“Diana… No… I want more than a mistress.”
She licked his lower lip. “One month.”
“I… You…” He kissed her as if he could not bear another moment without their bodies entwined, then jerked his head away gasping for air. “This is the opposite of haggling. You keep removing what I want—”
“One night.” She slid a finger beneath the hem of her bodice and gave a saucy tug. “Tonight.”
A few hours to do as they would. As they wished. To create as many memories as possible. To give into temptation… and to each other.
“Right here? Right now?” His voice was gravelly and tortured. He lowered his lips to the pulse point at the base of her neck, then glanced up, his gaze dark with desire. “This is not how most failed marriage proposals end.”
“One seduction.” She wrapped her arms about his neck and wriggled against his lap. “I dare you.”
He lifted her in his arms and pushed to his feet.
“Gentlemen don’t toss young ladies out in the street,” she whispered to him.
“I’m far from finished with you,” he growled as he strode toward the open door.
Rather than carry her out of his private parlor, Colehaven shut the door, engaged the lock, and stalked toward the fireplace.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he tossed her atop a plush chaise longue.
“One seduction.” He climbed on top and slanted his mouth over hers. “You dared me.”
A thrill raced through her.
“Me seducing you,” she clarified as he tugged his cravat from his neck and tossed it aside. “Not… whatever you’re planning to do to me.”
“Everything.” His slow, sensual smile was nothing but wicked promise.
Diana wished she had a neckcloth of her own to dramatically fling aside. A co-seduction was the most magnificent idea she had ever heard.
“Let the games begin,” she murmured and pulled him to her.
These kisses were different than before. Less possessive, more arrogant and teasing. As if he knew as well as she did that one night of seduction would never be enough.
Colehaven threaded his fingers with hers, trapping her hands on either side of her head.
